Where do you store/hide gear when at base camps

Hi all, I use to hike in the past and just lately got back into it. Im new to this forum. With the help of this forum I started gathering and making gear. One question I have. Say you want to spend a few day at one location and us that location as a base camp. How do you store/hide you gear when off exploring.
Im not a paranoid person but would hate to lose anything when out there.
Tom

The further you are from the trailhead, the less likely this will be a problem. I've never had anything stolen from my camp here in the PNW. I'm sure you'll hear simliar things from most other forum members.

Just put your non-food stuff inside your tent and take the proper bear precautions with your food.

I agree. If we are camped somewhere, we'll just leave our camp set up, and take off for the day. Never had a problem. We often pass other campsites like this.

If we are on the trail, we'll usually put our packs out of sight 50 yards away from the trail, and then take off for the top of a mountain or something.

Either way, the bear cans/food is left OUTSIDE of and away from the packs. That way, if a bear finds it, he doesn't rip the pack to shreds trying to get at it--and we have packs to hike home.

The only time I worry about this is in Yosemite, within a day's hike of the Happy Isles trailhead - I've heard stories of people's tents being stolen. But Yosemite is a special case - EVERYONE goes there, the mist trail and Little Yosemite Valley are easily the most populated trail in the park, and even in other areas of the same park I'm comfortable leaving gear in camp and have not seen any of mine stolen. The trailhead and the road leading to it are the more risky places to be.

Thanks, It seems pretty straight forward.
Tom

Lori
when I used to climb a lot in Yosemite everyone would leave their pack at the bottom of the climb, street shoes etc, and I have never had a problem. Of course we had our climbing gear with us. I have heard of people leaving their gear at the bottom of a climb in remote areas not in Yosemite to go bouldering and having their pack stolen by people waiting in the bushes. Moral - carry your gear up the rock.

Backpacking I always leave the gear in the tent. Zip the tent, no one knows whether or not you're in their napping, and carry your carkeys and meds with you along with flashlight etc.

Jim

Assume the worst case - assume that you tent will get blown down in a rainstorm while you are gone. I always loosely stuff my sleeping bag (no compression) or at least roll it up in the sleeping pad and put it in the middle of the tent. This way if it rains and the tent leaks, your bag stays dry.

Assume small and large animals will check out your campsite. Take anything that smells of food out of the tent. Clean all pots and organize the cook area. Hang food or use a bear cannister. It is much more likely that animals or the weather will get your gear than people. Pack straps and trekking pole handles will have salt on them - Marmots love to chew on these!

If I plan on being in a very crowded area I simply take my old stuff. It is so horrible that nobody would want it! I have an entire set of "Yosemite Valley" basecamp gear.

If you are really worried, I have seen wire security mesh sacks. You then pack up all your gear and lock the mesh sack with gear and attach to a tree.

If I do a side-trip on a day's hike I take the food out of my pack and hang it and then hide my pack under bushes or hang it out of sight up in a tree. I never just leave my pack sitting out in the open at on a trail.

That said, I have NEVER had a thing stolen while on the trail. I have had plenty of critters chew on my gear! And I have had my completely packed backpack stolen out of my car while it was sitting in my garage (loss of nearly $1,000. Ouch!

Daisy said
"Assume the worst case - assume that you tent will get blown down in a rainstorm while you are gone."
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Daisy, why would a tent be "blown down" in a rain storm? You're not the kind of person that takes a free standing tent and fails to stake it are you?
Jim - just wondered as this has never happened to me. I agree remove food, but I've never even had a tent bothered by critters and I NEVER remove those "smelly things like toothpaste etc" or even my Hershey bar wrapper from my pack. I have had a 500 WILD pound bear come and check out my tent one morning, that I had all of my food in, and he just sniffed and lumbered off. I guess my smell offended him more than the food smelled good. It was very cold weather and I generally do not hang my food when its cold because it smells less. I find that when I am camped off trail in real wilderness that there are no animal visitors besides camp robber crows.

Interesting question. I have just returned from a trip to Santa Cruz Island, where I stayed in a campground and day hiked for a few days, and then hiked to a distant area overnight. I then had two nights back at the campground. I left some food and clothing behind, because I had to pack all my water for the overnight.

I simply left my superfluous gear behind in the rodent proof container at my campsite, along with a note explaining my itinerary, and that the gear was not abandoned. I was just as concerned about a zealous ranger as a thieving camper. No problem whatever. On other occasions where I have cached items, I have done so discreetly, and have had no incidents at all.

Jim- Unfortunately bears are no longer "wild" in many well used backpack areas. I have had a bear bite into my toothpaste, a marmot chew trekking pole handles. A friend had his shoulder straps chewed through by marmots. A friend's teenage son left crackers in his car and when we got back the window was busted and crackers removed. Bear prints covered the car.

As for the tent, a shift in wind during a rainstorm can drive rain into a tent. Some places, rain is almost horizontal. A tie can break and the fly start flapping. Lots can happen when you are away.

Daisy

What you're describing sounds like basic stuff that we'd always do car camping when we were leaving the site - and all good ideas.

Steadman

For my stuff, I usually take down the shelter, put stuff in bags, and hide it in the bushes with my tarp covering it. Just don't forget were you put it.

I personally think it just depends on where you happen to be hiking. If there are a lot of people on the trail your on and there isn't a good spot to hide well off of the trail, then yeah, I'd do a little hiding or camo job of some sort on your gear.

But like others have already said, the farther back you are in the middle of nowhere, the less likely you are to have to worry about theft. I usually just look at it as I had to carry all of that in, they aren't going to probably want to haul it all out knowing I might be around or back soon, and can find them a lot faster with nothing on me than they can carry my stuff out. Plus anybody back that far tend to be pretty decent people in my own experiences and aren't ones for stealing.

I cache stuff in the bushes off trail a lot and I never had any trouble. And I've left stuff in my tent at a base camp or campground a lot of times and never had any trouble. Actually, I've never had any trouble at all once I'm in the forest

Here, in the Ozarks, and many other places too I'd think, we have a firearm hunting season open on some kind of critter almost all year long. I think that deters a lot of people that otherwise might be tempted to walk off with gear they find unattended. You just can't know if the owner isn't sitting within sight, all camoed out, with you in their rifle scope cross hairs.

There are hillbilly crankheads and whippersnappers here that case the remote parking lots where there are canoe launches and they'll steal stuff from cars shuttled there by outfitters. I had stuff taken from my car once when I had it shuttled, but even that is rare.

I read in the Journals of Lewis and Clark that they couldn't find several of their caches on the way back from the coast. The fact that they found most of them amazes me. But it sure would be cool to stumble upon one of theirs!